9 Jan
2021

Featured image: Woman Reading by Candlelight by Peter Ilsted (1861 – 1933)

As 2020 ended, reading and books were the glue that held my fragile, frazzled human seams together, binding me back into myself, and keeping me from crumbling into a brittle, bitter heap of dust.

In our Stacked feature at Haute Macabre this week, I review some of these titles that, good, meh, or otherwise, kept me together as we entered 2021.

Typically at the end of the year, I compile a list of all the books I’ve read and share it here on the blog, but eh, that sounds like a lot of work for a year that was so stupid. If you’re curious, though, you can see them all over on my Goodreads books read in 2020.

I’d have to say my favorite fiction was found in the best of the weird, the bizarre, the off-the-wall stories: Bunny, Where the Wild Ladies Are, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead are the first three that come to mind. The ghostly, chilling arctic horror of Dark Matter was my favorite audiobook of the year, and in terms of nonfiction, my top picks are the macabre biblio-adventures involving books bound in human skin found in Dark Archives and the exploring the mystical wonders of creativity with the exercises, practices, and rituals in The Magical Writing Grimoire.

What books did you thoroughly enjoy in 2020? What titles, in particular, got you through that spectacular dumpster fire of a hell year? And what have you got in your TBR stack for 2021? (There’s a lot of exciting horror in this fantastic Tor roundup, if you need some ideas!)

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29 Dec
2020

GIVEAWAY TIME!

Today I am over-the-moon thrilled to cozy up with the extraordinary Lisa Marie Basile for a magical, mystical year-end giveaway! If you are interested in ritual, the occult, history, writing magic, poetry, journaling, or magical symbols, this little book bundle is for you! 

One winner will take home THE ART OF THE OCCULT & THE MAGICAL WRITING GRIMOIRE, courtesy of Quarto Knows. This giveaway is limited to North America at this time. 

Peep over at @lisamariebasile’s Instagram account this afternoon for giveaway details! 

(In the meantime, if you’d like to read my interview with Lisa Marie Basile, author of The Magical Writing Grimoire, click here!)

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That I have any friends at all is something that constantly surprises me, and sometimes when I think I’ve missed an opportunity at friendship, that deeply saddens me.

I met G.A. Alexander briefly on a side-trip to Seattle, a branching-off from a trip to Portland, that I took a few years ago, in order to spend some time with friends. G.A. Alexander was the partner of one of these friends (a human whom you are all very familiar with, poet and writer Sonya Vatomsky, whom I have interviewed previously!) and I maybe said two words to him at the time. I met him again on a trip back to Seattle and was deeply privileged see him and Sonya get married…and again maybe only spoke a handful of words to him. I am very shy and I did my best!

As I know we share similar enthusiams–a love for the horror genre, and what I broadly think of as “goth musics”– I have kinda low-key, stalkery been following his projects with great interest over the last four years or so. As a musician and writer, G.A. Alexander has played in the bands Golden Gardens, The Vera Violets and Push Button Press, and is the writer of Kickstarter comics success Keepsakes, along with short stories published by Eerie River Publishing and Nocturnal Sirens Publishing. His new project, OBSO/LETE, is over on Kickstarter right now, and I am very much looking forward to these dystopian tales of terror.

In the meantime, I thought it might be fun to ask him a few questions about this forthcoming effort, and his inspirations/enduring influences, as well as wrangling some recommendations from him to share with all of you!

See below for our chat on all things horror from the grimy and lo-fi, the the elevated and possibly “too beautiful” and be sure to check out OBSO/LETE on Kickstarter!

Unquiet Things: I’ve written previously about how much I thoroughly enjoyed your first comic, Keepsakes. It had that sort of retro-anthology vibe, with stylized imagery recounting horrific yarns, that took me back to the feeling of reading copies of Eerie and Creepy magazine when I was way too young to understand them. And maybe, too, my more recent memory of watching Tales From The Crypt and wishing I had seen it when I was younger! Your new project, OBSO/LETE, which I understand to be cyberpunk body horror set in a collapsing future, sees a very different direction and vision! Can you tell us what OBSO/LETE is about? What should readers know prior to diving in?

G.A. Alexander: Thanks for noticing that about Keepsakes! A lot of people brought up  the Tales from the Crypt similarities, but I was also a fan of things like Creepy, Eerie, House of Mystery and other horror books that were either active or were enjoying a period of extensive reprinting when I was a kid.

OBSO/LETE is definitely a different beast altogether from Keepsakes. The book is set in an alternate future where technology (especially anything using networking) was severely restricted for the average person by the American government from the 1990s-onward. In the meantime, however, development for things such as medical research and the military have experienced no hindrance at all. Due to the stunted development of technology and the way society developed, the power grids in the large MegaCities that have sprung up have become overburdened to the point of near-collapse, and so different districts have started experiencing rolling blackouts which have come to be known by the population as “Cold Spots”. 

The first issue of the book tells the story of Sandra and Juliette, two bartenders working in District 4, an extremely blue-collar part of a large, un-named MegaCity. As their neighborhood is hit by Cold Spot after Cold Spot, they begin to notice that things may not quite be what they seem: the constant power fluctuations in the city seem to have ignited something buried deep below the city. Things that appear to be neither completely human, nor machine are now lurking in the shadows of the city, waiting for their opportunity to strike.

Could you share where the idea for OBSO/LETE came from, and what inspired you to tell this type of story? And what ‘type’ of story would you say this is?

OBSO/LETE’s main influences came from a few different sources: I noticed a lot of modern cyberpunk media had adopted a sort of “neon palm tree” sort of aesthetic, which eventually became a bit too ubiquitous to be fun for me, and so I really wanted to make something that could be considered “Cyberpunk” under its original idea of “high tech, low life”, but could be dirtier, nastier and grimier. Aside from that, a lot of the inspiration came from the movies Tetsuo The Iron Man and Hardware, the comic books Akira and BLAME! and the box art and aesthetic of 90’s FMV computer games like Under a Killing Moon and Phantasmagoria 2 along with 90’s cable television shows like The Hunger, Max Headroom and Highlander.

The story’s genesis came from mis-remembering a scene from Hellraiser III. After re-watching it and quickly realizing my memory had distorted it into something else entirely, that then turned into the inciting incident in OBSO/LETE (and which you can read on the Kickstarter campaign). From there, pieces started falling into place. The rolling blackout concept was something I had been thinking about for a few years after reading about how certain countries had actually implemented it. 

The premise of technology being hampered for regular people but completely unhindered by any restriction for the military came from living through Y2K while also working in an office park directly next door to a military contractor. 

I’ve got a fair amount of techo-skepticism in me and some very distinct worries about the growing alienation we’re experiencing due to social media and other technological things that past few decades have inserted into our lives, but I’m also very well-aware of how these things have absolutely improved certain peoples’ lives and how much of a net-benefit they can be. I wanted to tell a story that explored what the world would (possibly?) be like without some of these things. I didn’t want to come into that story with a pre-conceived black-or-white “Technology Bad/Technology Good” perspective at all, but I really wanted to think about and depict how I believe human interaction and the world may develop without mass-media communication as we currently know it.

Also, I wanted to take that world and put monsters in it.

You’ve got some stories on the popular horror r/nosleep subreddit and you’re a musician/songwriter(?) as well. As a writer of all sorts of interesting things, I’m curious as to who you consider your biggest writing influences? 

I’ve come to writing very late in life, having done most of my creative work as a musician and songwriter. I’m very influenced by who I grew up reading, including people like Billy Martin (who wrote under the name Poppy Z. Brite), Clive Barker, Stephen King, Brad Meltzer, William Gibson, Caitlin Kiernan, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and many others.

The writers who really “clicked” for me as an adult, and who kinda pushed me into a mode where I not only felt “I can do this” but also “I need to do this because they’re so good and I have to catch up!” are Thomas Ligotti, Nicole Cushing, Kathe Koja and Matthew M. Bartlett. I would recommend anyone with a taste for left-of-center horror with a VERY distinct sense of setting (which is a thing I find really appeals to me) check out any and all of those authors.

And in terms of horror cinema, if you had to narrow a list down to two or three films that shaped your view/appreciation of the genre, or that you recall as particularly profound, what would they be? (and why, if you’re feeling expansive!) Is there anything going on with horror right now that you find inspiring?

A lot of the horror movies over the last two or three years that have been connecting with me have been somewhat low-budget affairs. On the micro-budget end, Nigel Bach’s Bad Ben series has been an absolute delight to watch, as you get to see a filmmaker find his voice and his “style” as he goes. I really enjoyed Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor, as well, which utilized a ton of practical makeup effects, which I REALLY enjoy.

Historically speaking, my favorite horror movies would have to be Hellraiser, Halloween and The Thing. These are obviously fairly pedestrian takes, but I struggle to think of stronger and scarier works. I’m a big fan of Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On The Grudge, as well, and I think it’s an unfairly overlooked classic.

I feel a lot of modern horror can be sabotaged by how modern technology had granted us access to beautiful cinematography. The modern “elevated horror” subgenre has put out SO many great movies, but most of them have failed to connect with me and on reflection, I think it’s because so many of them are TOO beautiful to look at. Having been raised in the VHS era, I think there’s something with film grain and tracking static that my brain associates with “scary”.

You and your wife and cat just made an international move during a pandemic! Well done! I know that was challenging to say the least, and that whole process almost seems like a horror story in and of itself. I’m always interested in how one’s geography shapes one’s fears and inspirations in that vein. Can you speak to how aspects of place and environment, and perhaps even culture, find their way into your writing?  

That’s an interesting question, and one that I think I’m just starting to grapple with. Having grown up and spent most of my life in the USA, how does or should my writing change now that I’m, for all intents and purposes, a British Writer? 

A lot of my previous stories are set in and around North East Pennsylvania, which I only spent a couple of years living, in my 20s, but left a very specific impression on me. How long can I go on writing about America, while not living there, and have my stories feel grounded in reality? How long should I immerse myself in the UK’s culture and places and idiosyncrasies before I can safely write a British Horror story? It’s odd because on one hand, I have these very specific experiences and memories and on the other hand, I worry about how long those will feel “Valid”.

For example, in Keepsakes, there’s a short story “An Open Letter to Blue American Petroleum”. That’s directly inspired by actual experiences I had moving cross-country in the United States, filling up at little gas stations in little towns off the highway. I don’t think the same sort of experiences happen here.

While that’s the case, every place has its own strange culture and unique features. The city I live in now has an extensive canal system and you have the ability to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood through tunnels underneath bridges and by the side of long stretches of water. I can see this, and many other features of where I now live sneaking into my work soon.

Keepsakes felt very North Eastern USA to me. Keepsakes 2 (which will be a standalone story, tangentially connected to the original collection) will be Pacific Northwestern. OBSO/LETE’s setting feels Chicago to me, while its characters feel very St. Petersburg, Florida. I always seem to want to write about places after I leave them more than when I’m there.

I’m extremely fascinated by the personal routines of creators. Do you have a particular process you use when entering into your work? What gets you in the mood to write? Any rituals or practices? 

I wish I had a better or more structured routine. A lot of my process feels like “stealing time” from other things. I recently bought a couple of notebooks and a fountain pen to try and make my writing process feel a little less tethered to a keyboard, but I’ve found that the notebook is its own tether.

Some of my favorite work has been typed into my phone at 11:30pm at night while laying in bed, dealing with insomnia. 

I only just realized that you stream on Twitch! Horror games, is that right? I am not very good at these things, but I recently just tried my hand at World of Horror, an H.P. Lovecraft/Junji Ito-inspired RPG horror game set in a quiet Japanese town filled with eldritch beings, wild-eyed cultists, and impossibly twisted human forms. I died a lot! Have you played anything lately that you really enjoyed and that you might recommend?

I tried out World of Horror on-stream a few months back! 

I died a lot too. I think my issue is that I have exactly zero history with RPGs. My game of choice was always point-and-click adventure games.

The Twitch stream, Welcome to Frankenstein House, came as a result of wanting to fill time when the pandemic hit. Initially the idea was to do comic book reviews but that quickly evolved into abandoning the review format about 10 minutes into each stream and them proceeding to goof around about whatever we wanted (usually complaints about the Stuart Townsend depiction of Lestat in the Queen of the Damned movie, or how Alfred from Batman is in fact an interdimensional sex god) for 2-3 hours every week. 

After that, we started adding in horror gaming streams, which then took over the whole thing. We’ve been on pause for a couple of months due to the movie and the time difference but we’re planning on restarting soon and we’re probably going to be switching to more of a variety show format.

The games I’ve really enjoyed playing lately are:

Detention: Scary point-and-click adventure game set in a haunted school during the White Terror in Taiwan

Love, Sam: I dubbed this a “Reading Simulator” on the stream as a joke, but it was REALLY scary. You play an unidentified character, reading a school friend’s diary in their tiny apartment. As you read, things in the apartment being to move and change. Doors appear, taking you to different places. You realize that the diary may have opened the door for something to haunt you.

Stories Untold: Sort of a puzzle/adventure game. It’s 4 different games that each tell a story in different ways. The first game, The House Abandon, is a retro text adventure and each of the others keep the sme spirit if not the same mechanics. It has a great early 80’s style aesthetic to it.

The Glass Staircase: Made by Puppet Combo, one of the more interesting “auteur” game creators out there right now. This is effectively a take on the Resident Evil or Clocktower style survival horror gameplay, but in an Italo-horror environment. It’s really cool, but really difficult.

Speaking of recommendations! I am normally constantly on the hunt for, and learning about new music–although in 2020 my interest in this has regrettably waned quite a bit. I have to imagine that as a musian you’re constantly finding and listening to new things! I’d love to know your favorites from 2020.

The most recent I Like Trains album Kompromat was fantastic, a really great return for a band I was half-sure was done. It’s odd post-punk, extremely politically outspoken, dark and upsetting.

Ghostpoet’s I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep is an amazing album as well. It’s an extremely sad, dark and introspective album.

A lot of my 2020 has been spent discovering things I missed from previous years too.

Vore Aurora’s Eidolon from 2018 is a beautiful, atmospheric dark synthpop album.

Carpenter Brut’s Leather Teeth is a great retro-synth dance album.

Creux Lies’s The Hearth is absolute The Cure-worship, but the songwriting and performances are so on-point.

This question is a bit silly, but I hope you’ll indulge me! Your wife Sonya sometimes shares your thoughts on the perfumes that they’re sampling, and I know I’m not the only one who loves to read about them! Unquiet Things readers are fragrance fiends as well, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’d love to know what perfume of theirs you’ve smelled recently…that you might base a horror story around! Tell us everything about this aromatic atrocity, please!

Oh god. So, the problem with writing a horror story about Perfume is you don’t want it to be derivative of the Patrick Suskind book!

So for anyone unfamiliar with Sonya’s “My Husband Smells” posts, Sonya collects all these samples from various boutique perfume companies and has me smell them and say what I feel they smell link.

The gimmick is that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I have no frame of reference for what traditional perfumes or colognes are “supposed” to smell like. This is only compounded due to the fact that I have bad sinuses which affect my sense of smell.

Ultimately, you’ll end up with a $400 bottle of expensive perfume and a review from me that just says “Smells like Dracula makeup?” because some chemical in it smelled sort of like Halloween makeup I put on as a kid and it triggered a sense memory.

The Story:

My perfume horror story would be based around us receiving a number of samples from some company that Sonya couldn’t remember ordering from, and that doesn’t have a website. 

Rather than triggering sense memories, the perfumes would cause us to relive entire moments in our lives. As we went down the series of samples, the memories would get more and more recent, and we would find ourselves unable to stop sniffing each of the samples.

The story would end with us testing the last of the samples, in a jet black, unlabeled nebulizer. As we each breathed it in, we would feel the air disappear from our lungs, the lights disappear and the walls close around us – we wouldn’t be in a memory from the past, we would be trapped  in a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet. 

We would be “remembering” being dead and being interred in a grave, unable to breathe or speak or escape.

The End.

Back to OBSO/LETE as we wrap up! Is there anything else you want to share about this project or what we can expect? I’m really looking forward to it!

We have about 7 days left on the campaign and we’ve just debuted our second of two t-shirt designs.

It’s really been a labor of love, and I’ve gotten the opportunity to make some new friends in the industry, Justin M. Ryan (penciller and inker) is also an accomplished writer on his own and has a fantastic graphic novel he put out a while back called Tresspasser. Todd Rayner (colorist) has an awesome comic book he does called Icepick.

In addition to OBSO/LETE, I also have a scifi-horror story called “Flickering” which just came out in an anthology from Eerie River Press called “It Calls From The Sky”.

You can pick up my first comic, Keepsakes, on Comixology, Seernova and TromaNOW!

You can also read a short comic I put up for free on my website: “Welcome Home.

Find G.A. Alexander: Website // Instagram // Twitter

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11 May
2020

 

In this week’s YouTube upload, I chatter about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, and one that’s held a lifelong fascination for me: the things that scare me and strike fear into my heart! From a very young age I’ve been obsessed with the things that frighten me and in this video, I share a few of those things, which, as an adult, I find mildly unsettling, or straight-up freaky.

Pull up a chair, pour a bracing libation for your stout heart, and let’s have a chat about the nightmares and dreadful imagery that haunts our subconscious and lurks in our individual shadows. What scares you? Please feel free to share in the video comments!

Books/stories mentioned in this video:

💀 The House Next Door by Anne River Siddons
💀 The House Next Door Lifetime adaptation
💀 Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Ranpo
💀 “The Human Chair” LP by Cadabra Records
💀 “The Lady Maid’s Bell” by Edith Wharton (read online)
💀 “The Wendigo” by Algernon Blackwood (read online)

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3 Jan
2020

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My main reading goal this year was to have finished five books that gave me trouble over the last few years. Meaning, I started the book, and then put it down, and then never got to the end. Whether the story was boring, or the content seemed too daunting, or perhaps I wasn’t in the right headspace to tackle the thoughts or the writing at the time–whatever the reason, the goal was to finish five such titles before the year’s end.

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I finished exactly one of those books: The King of Elfland’s Daughter. Which was a sort of excruciating read and if you ask me, there wasn’t nearly enough of the titular daughter in it! No matter. It is done and finished and I need never look at it again. As for the other four books, well. That just didn’t happen.*  But I did supplement with at least 70 other books that I wasn’t even supposed to be reading!

*I think I will try to work at least one of each in over the next few years.

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In previous years I’d gotten quite a bit more reading done, but this year I was actually writing a book…and so for a good chunk of the year, the writing took precedence over the reading–reading for pleasure, anyway. There was a lot of reading for research, which just isn’t as fun. Even when the research-reading is something that you are interested in and have a passion for! Whatever “It” is, if you’re obligated to be doing It, It’s never as fun as the stuff you’re not doing. That’s just how it works!

Anyway, that project, while not completely finished, is a good 75% done, and after working on it in late spring-all summer–early fall, I felt it was finally safe to start reserving books at the library again. I’m afraid that for a few weeks there, I might have gone a little nuts.

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With regard to my 2019 reads*, reviews, and resulting recommendations? Well, I’ve probably reviewed them already at Haute Macabre or will be doing so shortly, but feel free to peek over there under the “stacked” tag if you are curious about my thoughts of any of these.

However, if you want to skip all of that and get straight to my favorites, I will recommend the following because they were fantastic and might even warrant a second read some year in the far-flung future.

*read by me in 2019, though not necessarily published in 2019

Fiction picks of 2019
The Ten Thousand Doors Of January by Alix Harrow
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Frankisstein by Jeannette Winterson
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Non-fiction, Essays, and Memoir Picks of 2019
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes by Anne Elizabeth Moore
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine
Waking The Witch by Pam Grossman. I am not sure why this title didn’t show up in my Goodreads imagery above, maybe I forgot to record it? One thing I definitely did not forget to do though, is write a pretty detailed book report on it for Haute Macabre earlier this summer!

What did you read in 2019 that you would recommend to a friend? Or possibly recommend to a friend who also happens to be me?

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Can I even read this book? Well…no. But I just received an autobiography on my beloved Maria Germanova all the way from Russia, and I’m not gonna let a bunch of Cyrillic alphabets stand in my way!

To be perfectly honest, I had despaired of ever receiving this package. I don’t typically order many things from that part of the world and wasn’t sure how long it might take to arrive (and it seemed like it was taking forever! Although maybe I had only ordered it three weeks ago. Hm. I should better manage my expectations.)

In a prescient missive heralding things to come, I received the below image link via Instagram yesterday from a friend. This is a great re-enactment of Maria Germanova’s Blue Bird costume–doesn’t the Laughing Cow cheese container disks just totally make it?! Brava to the creator! And as it happened, the book arrived not an hour later.

via Lydia Edwards/@howtoreadadress
via Lydia Edwards aka @howtoreadadress

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waking the witch sun

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (mmm…rose quartz!), then I probably do not need to inform you that Pam Grossman –writer, podcaster, practicing witch, and all-around mistress of magic, myth, and moxie–has conjured forth an incredible book to share with the world: Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power.

I recently had the ideal opportunity to devour its wonderments whilst whizzing through the skies on a mammoth metal broomstick, dizzying views of watercolor clouds in the early dawn’s cauldron bubbling and churning below. Free from obligations, phone calls, and miraculously (!) even a seatmate, it was the perfect setting to dive into this powerful collection of meditations and celebrations focused on the evocative, influential archetype of the witch.

I have since arrived back home and I am so pleased to share with you today my thoughts on Waking The Witch, and, in celebration of the summer solstice, Haute Macabre and Pam have an exciting giveaway announcement for you below, as well!

As with anything Pam creates, and which I know I may eventually write about, I’m initially intimidated at the prospect of reviewing Waking the Witch, which debuted on June 4th and is already a best selling new release on Amazon. But, as in the past, once I have cracked the cover and peeked inside, I am inexplicably drawn in with a whoosh as through a magic portal, and having begun to read the material, I’m immediately awestruck. And then! It’s off to the races and I’m scribbling notes and observations faster than I can read the material or even properly parse what I’ve written about it, and I tell you what: no one–no one!– has the ability to grab my attention and my imagination quite that way that Pam does.

[And if you don’t believe me, check out the bundles of blurbs brimming with words of praise in the book’s opening pages, penned by a veritable who’s who of contemporary neopaganism and witchcraft– the likes of Kristin SoleeGabriela HerstikNeko Case, etc. If your Sarah E. doesn’t know what she’s talking about (and let’s face it, sometimes she doesn’t), then, by goddess, these writers, artists, and magic-makers do.)

If that doesn’t grab you, I will steal the lines right out of art critic Morf Vandewalt’s mouth (played with campy panache by Jake Gyllenhal in the Netflix film Velvet Buzzsaw.) “Mesmeric… I’m ensorcelled,” he sighs with embellished, unbridled enthusiasm at the sight of …something or other. It doesn’t matter. That movie has nothing to do with this book. All you need to know is that I too, was ensorcelled during my airborne afternoons with Waking The Witch, and I don’t mean that with any amount of smarmy irony or the puffed up, self-importance of a critic who thinks their words are going to make or break someone’s career. From the book’s electrifying introduction right through the emotional acknowledgments at the end, I was, for a time lost to this world, utterly immersed in its resplendent thrall. If that’s not ensorcelled, then I just don’t know what is.

Visually, texturally, Waking The Witch is an eye-pleasing, tactile delight. Bound in material cool to the touch and satiny-not-quite-slippery to grip, the matte cover glimmers with gold foil motifs that glow gratifyingly when the light hits them just so and is boldly punctuated with flashes of flaming scarlet. The mystical patterns and symbols–hands conjuring bolts of lightning, fingertips twinkling with tiny stars, crescent moons, curving arrows, and circling paths– are nestled against a deep celestial blue echoing the velvet vault of heaven at midnight. As to these observations, Pam shared a few magical, behind-the-scenes insights: “[The cover] reminds me of the sky and sea, and also looks like lapis lazuli, a gemstone associated with elevating the spirit and having clear communication – which is certainly what I hope the book will do! The triangle is associated with the triple goddess, and I love the way the fiery red pops against the background like some sort of amulet or jewel…”

Though at first glance this appears no slim tome, balanced on the palm, the book possesses a peculiar weightlessness that belies the scholarly and spiritual heft of the wisdom, wit, and warmth contained within. A beautiful, brilliant, biblio-treat, I found this is not so much a casual book for the nightstand so much as a magical grimoire/memoir for my altar. But whether your interest lies in witches and witchcraft or feminism, culture, and gender, I believe you’ll find yourself too ensnared in its spell to leave it lay long in either place.

If you’re already familiar with Pam’s evocative writing through her essays and articles, her illuminated manifesto What Is A Witch, or perhaps even from her artful blog posts, then you are no stranger to the beat and the pulse of her words, and how they sing with a wonderful rhythm in your blood. The lyrical language with which she crafts her assorted observations and myriad musings have a profoundly poetic, incantatory quality that you can’t just passively read without also, in a heady, personal way, simultaneously experiencing. They’re a song, a chant, a spell; you feel them, and they move you. ” There is a line between witchcraft and wordsmithery,” she notes, and later references the poem “Spelling”, by Margaret Atwood: “A word after a word after a word is power–” and I believe there is no more powerful word on contemporary witchcraft that those that Pam shares within Waking The Witch.

Early in I’m struck by her words of inclusivity. It makes me a little sad to note that sometimes (it seems to me, at least) our various alt-communities can seem anything but inclusive. Do you ever notice that the weirdos, the strangelings, the outcasts, and outsiders–those friends and familiars on the fringe–can sometimes be the most vicious gatekeepers? (But listen, I’m not here to judge; the meme “who hurt you?” comes to mind, which can be so funny/unfunny, because it’s so painfully true. I’m sorry that someone, somewhere gave you a hard time, spooky friends.) I love how Pam makes her opinion clear that whether your interest is heartfelt or cheeky, budding or established, your beliefs and practices public or private—the witch is an elastic archetype accessible to all, and we might call ourselves witch for manifold reasons.

The word “witch”, she further elucidates, represents “a means of identifying how I carry myself through the world and the kind of energetic current that I wish to be a conduit for.”

“At any given time I am a feminist; someone who celebrates freedom and will fight against injustice using every tool at her disposal; a person who values intuition and self-expression; a kindred spirit with those who favor the unconventional, the uncanny, the underground. I am a woman who dares speak her mind and display the full gamut of human emotion–behavior that is still met by society with judgement or disdain.”

From the current state of my copy of Waking The Witch, you’d think it had undergone the fabled test of the 7 Wonders and come out the other side scrappier, scarred, and deeply changed for the experience. Never have I underlined with such feverish intensity, dog-eared with so much unreserved enthusiasm, and highlighted with cackling, demented glee. Contained within these pages was a fascinating exploration brimming with nuanced insights of witches in history, politics, cinema, literature, and the arts–and which will surely remain a perpetual font of inspiration and sagacity that I will no doubt revisit again and again. I didn’t want to forget a single word. (And trust me, this book has been forever marked in such a way to ensure that I will not!)

From chapters encompassing the awkward, rebellious magic of the Teen Witch, to the old-timey Girls Gone Wild idea that witches were thought to be horned-up, power-hungry consorts of Satan, all kissing his butthole and eating dead baby parts and whatnot; the cruel brutality of witch hunts which arose from that foolishness, to how those collective perceptions and experiences shaped the notion of witches and witchcraft over time–when I initially remarked that I devoured this book, that was no exaggeration. Waking The Witch serves up a boundless buffet of brilliance and I greedily consumed every course.

Highlights included:

Chapter 4: “Body Monsters” which struck a deep, dark chord within me; amongst other items of relevance, Pam discusses childlessness and the right to that reality, bodily autonomy, and growing older in a society punitive of repulsive, repugnant wrinkles and sags.

In Chapter 6: “The Dark Arts: Magic Makers And Craft Women,” we are introduced to a handful of women who wield their wands creatively, and in particular: surrealist artists and friends, Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. “Steeped in kitchens and cauldrons and laboratories and labyrinths,” these artists speak to my particular flavor of witchery and spell-craft–that which involves puttering and muttering around boiling pots, cursing and curing, chopping and chanting–all of the toil and trouble and cauldron bubble, without, you know, the eye of newt and toe of frog. And then when you’re through, you’ve got a nice meal! (Or a not so nice meal, as the case may be. Not that I’m endorsing this.)

Finally, with Chapter 7: “Power In Numbers: Covens And Collectives”, Pam presents us with the idea of joining forces with like-minded practitioners. Ooof! This is an unnerving thought, as Pam, like me, was concerned that the individuals involved might be “…too flaky or too corny or too serious or not serious enough.” But this resistance, she reveals, really might be more about us:

To practice in a group requires both a loosening of self-consciousness and a tightening grip on the rudder of sincerity. You have to care and you have to let others see you caring. And you have to bear witness to their caring in turn. You will most likely grow to care about them. And heaven forfend, you may even allow them to care about you too.

When we decided to be part of any community, we are making a commitment to literally be there for ourselves and for each other. Once you’ve identified a group that you may want to be part of–and that group has signaled that you are indeed invited to join them–the next step you take is to simply show up.

For in that moment, you are choosing to say, “Here I am,” and for many of us that may be a scary prospect.

Before I sign off (TLDR; Waking The Witch is a rare treasure! Go out and buy this book!) I thought I might share a few words from the author. As someone who continually struggles with starting creative projects, sustaining forward momentum throughout the process, and who stresses with the oftentimes depressing aftermath of putting a thing out into the world and wondering, “what now?”… and also realizing that I am not the only one among us to work through these challenges, I thought it might be illuminating and valuable to find out how this witchy writer handles these concerns for herself. See below, wherein Pam shares a few insights for us egarding the processes, practices, and rituals that she utilized while writing Waking The Witch

“I had so many different rituals and magic workings I was doing throughout the process of this book. It was a constant process of burning candles and lighting incense, and surrounding myself with helpful talismans. My friend Peter had me do a magic square and sigil for Jupiter, which is a planet associated with power and authority. This was to help me step into my confidence because I must say, at times it felt rather daunting to try to write about such a big subject, especially when so many brilliant people have already done so. The magic square is on my desk – right near my RuPaul candle in fact, which I also light when I need to feel extra fierce!

But it was also important to me that I marked each step of the process, as well as giving thanks to my various spirits along the way for their guidance. When I handed in the final first draft, for example, my husband and I went for a walk in our neighborhood late that night to get a celebratory candy bar. We ended up in this pharmacy that happened to be open late and there I saw that this gorgeous, iridescent candle I had my eye on for months was on sale for 50% off! And this may sound strange, but my late Grandma Trudy was the queen of bargains, and I write about her in the book as well, so I knew it was her way of sending me a little congratulatory sign! So I bought the candle and lit it that night to thank her, and I still light it when I need an extra boost of support from her.

When I got the galley for the book, I put it on my altar and also brought it to my coven whenever we met, for extra good vibes, too. And now that the actual book is out, I replaced the galley on my altar with the final product. My wish for it is not only that it is successful – whatever that may mean – but more so that it will be of service to Spirit and will reach those who need it. I hope it brings more compassion, love, fun, and freedom into people’s lives, and that it helps wake the witch within them. We’re going to need a lot of wide-open hearts and transformational power to change this world for the better, so I hope in some small way this book contributes to that. I truly believe that witches are the future.”

Find Pam Grossman: Website // Phantasmaphile // The Witch Wave //  Twitter // Instagram

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8 May
2019

Book Stuff

categories: bookish

Book stuff

So…some recent book stuff!

…not to be confused with “butt stuff”. Which…don’t ask me how one could be mistaken for the other, but as someone who frequently mishears and misreads things, I know it happens!

Book stuff the first is our Stacked reading compilation over at Haute Macabre, covering the months of April and May. Among others, I really enjoyed In The House In The Dark Of The Woods by Laird Hunt, a witchy woodland fever dream of a tale, set in colonial New England, is utterly immersive and twisty and strange. Not mentioned, because I didn’t even know how to begin to tackle the material, is The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang. I feel funny saying that I “enjoyed” this book, a woman’s exhausting struggle with chronic and mental illness, but it was intimate and candid,  beautifully written and immediately compelling, and provided perspectives and insights that were surprising, terrifying, and sometimes even quite empowering.

Book stuff the second: I interviewed Mallory O’Meara, best-selling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent PatrickMilicent Patrick was an illustrator and artist “who designed the iconic monster from The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but, unfortunately for decades, no one knew much else about her.” Mallory’s book is the incredible true story of Milicent Patrick’s life and legacy, and an exploration of why her accomplishments still matter today and why her story needs to be told now more than ever. Bonus: if you’ve never seen Creature From The Black Lagoon, you can watch it over on archive.org!

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26 Mar
2019

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By my broom,” said she, “I give you no spell against magic.”

It’s taken me three years, but I have finally finished reading Lord Dunsany’s The King Of Elfland’s Daughter. It was a bit of a slog, but I’ll confess: this enchanting passage kicks off the point at which the story begins to redeem itself for me (20 pages from the end, oh well.)  The ageless, enigmatic Ziroonderel is the star of the show as far as I’m concerned. “As though magic were not the spice and essence of life, its ornament and its splendor.” Quite right! Send that parliament of old fools packing, you wise, wonderful old thing!

This title marks the first of my five goal books read in 2019, though it is book 25 of the total read so far this year. Next up: The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton Smith, which I began in late summer of 2017 and was actually enjoying very much, but I became distracted by other books, set it aside, and it was soon buried and forgotten.

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